A Mint and YNAB Alternative Without Bank Linking
Short answer: Mint shut down on March 23, 2024, and YNAB costs $14.99 a month or $109 a year after a 34-day trial. If you want to budget on Android without a bank connection, an account or a subscription, Balance is free with unlimited transactions (it shows ads; Premium is optional). If you want automatic bank imports, multi-device sync or YNAB's zero-based method, YNAB is still the stronger choice.
What happened to Mint
Intuit closed Mint on March 23, 2024 and pointed users to Credit Karma, which it also owns. Credit Karma doesn't offer Mint's budgeting tools, so many former Mint users went looking for a new budget app (CNBC). Mint was built around linking your bank accounts — so if the shutdown made you rethink handing a free service your bank access, you're not alone.
Balance vs YNAB
| Feature | Balance | YNAB |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (with ads); optional Premium monthly, yearly or lifetime | $14.99/month or $109/year; no free tier |
| Trial | 7-day Premium trial; free version needs none | 34 days, no card needed when signing up directly |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Bank linking | Never | Optional — unlinked accounts with manual entry are supported |
| Import from bank | No | Yes, via bank connection or file import |
| Where data lives | On your device; optional backup to your own Google Drive | YNAB's cloud |
| Works offline | Fully, with no server | Syncs through YNAB's servers |
| Platforms | Android | iOS, Android, web |
| Sharing | Single device (backup and restore) | One subscription for up to 6 people |
| Budgeting method | Monthly category budgets with rollover and pace projection | Zero-based: give every dollar a job |
YNAB facts from ynab.com/pricing and YNAB support. Prices in USD, excluding tax.
When YNAB is the better choice
- You want transactions to import automatically from your bank.
- You budget as a household across several devices or on the web.
- You want YNAB's zero-based method and its teaching material — many people credit it with changing their habits.
- You're on iPhone.
When Balance is the better choice
- You don't want to link a bank — or your bank isn't supported anyway. See budgeting without bank linking.
- You don't want another account or your finances on someone else's server. Balance works fully offline.
- You don't want a subscription just to budget: the free version has unlimited transactions, budgets, recurring rules and reports.
- You track money in several currencies — Balance saves the exchange rate on each transaction. How it works.
- You want Balance in Arabic or Urdu with a full right-to-left layout.
Switching from Mint or YNAB
- Keep your history. Export your YNAB data before you cancel, and hold on to any Mint export you saved. Balance can't import these files, but you'll still have your records.
- Add each account in Balance with today's balance.
- Recreate your categories and set a default monthly budget for each.
- Add recurring rules for rent, salary and subscriptions so they post automatically.
- Log daily spending as it happens — it takes seconds per purchase.
Budget without a bank login or subscriptionBalance is free to download, with unlimited transactions.
Get it on Google Play